Self-made ultralight camelback bag

This is my DIY ultralight water bag. The bag itself, without the
bladder, weighs 20 grams.

Normally I do not need any “hydration systems”. In fact their
justifications, like “hydrate or die” or “drink up to 24% more”
sound completely idiotic to me. Exception is the
endurance
winter bike rides with local Espoo cycling club
IK-32. Water in the bottles freezes
while we ride for 5-6 hours non-stop in sub-zero temperatures – and it’s
hard to explain to the unexperienced what you think about your water
bottles in such case. Most often it means that you quit the ride,
founding yourself in sweat-through clothes within some 40 km towards
home. Even when it’s a bit above 0°C, as it is now, drinking water
warm is much better than ice-cold.

Other riders carry water bottles in their back pockets, but my jacket
has pockets which are not really suitable for it. So I decided to try
a camelbak. But models in the store make my digestive tract to work in
the wrong direction. Such simple thing as bag for the plastic water
bladder is made of tens of various colorful cloth pieces, contains
plastic foam padding everywhere, several strips and bindings all over
the body, and weighs up to 500g! I’m not much of a weightweenie,
but half-kilo for a cloth bag is way over what I call "acceptable".
All this plastic
foam and nylon base gets completely sweaty during the ride, which means
I’d have to carry half kilogram more of own sweat each time,
and wash it away at home. And for these rides, grams actually matter:
for me, it easily can mean keeping up with the group until the end or
dropping out somewhere in the middle.

I realized that I’m not taking any of these fancy ready camelbaks
even for free. I bought just the plastic water bladder (it was marked
“Platypus”, weighted 120 g.) and sew an ultra-thin nylon cover
for it together with two minimally padded shoulder straps.
The latter attach directly to the top closing of the bladder.
As I said, all my creature weighs 20 grams and does not collect more
sweat than the inner lining of the jacket. In fact even much less.

It worked! It takes 2l of fluid and weighs less than 2 x 1l.
standard water bottles with holders. I’m using it in the rides now.